


No Winter's Cold Can Stop Me

by SylvanWitch



Series: Ain't No Mountain High Enough [9]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Rape Recovery, Team as Family, holiday fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 04:24:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12927381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvanWitch/pseuds/SylvanWitch
Summary: Tony gets the flu for Christmas, but it's Steve who gets the healing.





	No Winter's Cold Can Stop Me

**Author's Note:**

> There are brief mentions of Steve's sexual assault and reference to some post-traumatic stress symptoms. Nothing is graphically related, but I wanted to warn you off if you're sensitive to such things. 
> 
> The title, as with all of those in this series, is taken from Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's terrific "Ain't No Mountain High Enough."

“I’m dying.”

 

“You’re really not.”

 

“How would you know?  You don’t even get colds, never mind killer mutant flu viruses from hell.”

 

Of course, Steve was translating that from the congested gibberish Tony was actually speaking. 

 

“We’re supposed to be ringing in the New Year tonight in style, watching the ball drop from our personal Quinjet over Times Square.”

 

“You should stop talking, save your strength.”  Maybe that was a little waspish, but Steve was tired.  Tony had contracted the flu three days ago, and ever since, he’d been a miserable, whiny little—

 

“Steeeeve,” though it sounded more like, “Sbeeeef.”

 

“Yes, dear?”  There was certainly no bitter almond aftertaste to that sickly sweet response.

 

“Can I have a clean pillowcase?  This one is too hot!”

 

It was Tony’s fourth pillowcase of the day, and he’d only been awake two hours, but Steve welcomed any opportunity to escape the stifling sickroom that their suite had become.  Though there was a stack of clean linens just outside the door (which wore a hand-lettered **Quarantine Zone** sign, thanks to Clint), Steve pretended he didn’t see them, walking down the hall toward the murmuring voices he heard in the common area.

 

He should feel guilty for leaving Tony to wallow in his misery.  He did feel guilty, in fact.

 

But he was also desperate for some conversation that didn’t involve bodily fluids.

 

“Hey,” Nat said, looking up from her seat at the breakfast bar.  She had a magazine in front of her, something glossy in Cyrillic.  All the models looked like they’d come from gulags; they had the lean, hungry look of long privation, and the photographer had gotten overly enthusiastic with the blue filter. 

 

He gave Nat an eyebrow, and she shrugged elaborately.  “I read it for the articles.”

 

Steve was sort of proud of himself that he got that pop culture reference.  Then he noticed a faint stippling pattern on the paper and realized that she really _was_ reading the article—at least the coded parts.

 

Bruce wandered in barefoot, hair in a floofy aureole around his head, eyes still half-lidded.  It was four o’clock in the afternoon.

“Long night?”  He was only teasing a little, and Bruce acknowledged that with a rueful quirking of his lower lip. 

 

“Working on something for Tony,” he said then, reaching for the jet fuel sludge that had once been the morning’s coffee.

 

“Ugh, don’t drink that,” Steve said, coming around the counter to take it from Bruce.  “I’ll make you that mate you like.”

 

Bruce nodded his weary thanks and slid onto a stool next to Nat. 

 

“Shouldn’t you be babysitting?” Clint asked Steve, appearing, as he sometimes did, out of thin air.  He carried the scent of cold winter air with him as he slipped by, headed for the fridge.

 

“I’m taking a break,” Steve admitted, feeling shame heat up his face.

 

“I can take over for a while if you need some time,” Bruce offered, and Steve was tempted, but even a cursory assessment of Bruce’s appearance suggested that he was in no real condition to spend time with Tony. 

 

“I appreciate the offer, but I’m good.” 

 

Nat snorted in that elegant way she had but didn’t say anything.  Clint slid onto the stool on her other side and began eating an apple with gusto.  As he chewed, he skewered Steve with a look.

 

“Something wrong?”  Steve asked eventually, knowing he shouldn’t give Barton a straight line like that but wanting to break the awkward tension he felt building between them.

 

“You feelin’ okay?”

 

Steve ducked his head and turned away, busying himself with measuring leaves into a tea ball.

 

“Steve,” Clint prodded, drawing his name out into several syllables.

 

“I’m fine,” he said, maybe louder than was strictly necessary.  “I’m fine,” he repeated, quieter, trying to sound like he really meant it this time and not like Clint had struck a sore spot.  When he chanced looking up again, he saw three pairs of eyes on him.

 

Nat’s, in particular, had that piercing look they got when she was about to do a surgical interrogation—she’d cut the truth out of him any way she could.

 

Setting aside the tea, letting it steep, Steve at last caved to the inevitable and took a stool on the far side of the island, which effectively made it seem as though he were about to undergo questioning by a panel of experts.

 

Insofar as they were his sort-of family and had gone through a lot of crap with Steve and Tony over the past several months, Steve guessed they kind of were.

 

“What’s up?” Nat asked in that neutral way she had that meant beatings would continue until morale improved.

 

Steve shrugged.  Part of him wanted to unburden himself of everything and let his healing be a group effort.  Part of him was ashamed that he was thinking of himself when Tony was the one who was suffering.  Part of him was self-conscious about confessing what had happened to him.  He didn’t think any of them would judge him, but he thought it might change the way that they thought of him—how could it not?

 

But the nightmares had been relentless despite Tony’s best efforts to soothe him, despite all of his reassurances that Steve could tell him anything, do whatever he needed to, and Tony wouldn’t love him any less.

 

Knowing something and believing it in the parts of him that were wounded—well, that was hard, harder maybe than he had the strength for. 

 

And since Tony had been sick, had gone through his own awful period of screaming delirium…

 

Well, Steve hadn’t gotten much rest lately. 

 

He felt like a weakling.

 

“Steve?” Bruce asked quietly, bringing Steve back to the moment.  Bruce’s eyes were on Steve’s hands, which had gripped the edge of the counter so tightly that the laminate had begun to crack.

 

_Damn it._

 

Steve loosened up, rolling his shoulders and trying to ease some of the tightness in his neck.  He felt like there was a hand slowly crushing the back of his skull.  He blew out a breath and closed his eyes.

 

When he opened them a minute later, he fixed them on a spot on the kitchen wall behind and between Nat and Bruce and said, “When I was in Libya something…happened…to me.  And I—.”

 

He couldn’t go any further, wasn’t sure of the words, but when he risked a glance at Nat’s face, he saw the recognition there—and the sympathy and understanding, which made his eyes prickle hotly so that he had to turn them back to his arbitrary focal point.

 

“Was it—,” Bruce started, sounding awkward, bless him, but also resolved.

 

But it was Clint who surprised Steve by saying, “That bitch!  I wish Tony had saved her for us so we could all have a turn at killing her.”

This brought Steve’s eyes to Clint, who wore an expression of righteous outrage that warmed Steve’s heart a little.  But it was the vulnerability, a sort of weary knowing behind Clint’s anger, that made Steve flinch and look back to Nat, who nodded almost invisibly, affirming Steve’s suspicion.

 

“It wasn’t…she didn’t…,” Steve couldn’t think how to explain that it had been a rape but not really, and he knew—because Tony had made him read a bunch of websites and even a book Tony had had Jarvis order special delivery when Steve had made it clear that he didn’t want to talk to a therapist—that it didn’t matter that there’d been no penetration, that rape was rape.

 

Steve didn’t know how to say any of it, though.  He felt helpless again, the way he had when he’d woken in restraints, drugged into feebleness by the woman who’d assaulted him.

 

“It doesn’t matter what she didn’t do,” Clint said then, a calm, centered surety in his voice that helped ground Steve and made him feel a little less exposed.

 

“Or did, for that matter,” Nat added.

 

“We don’t need the details if you don’t want to share them,” Clint said.

 

Bruce was nodding, “All we want to know is how to help you.”

 

Something broke inside of him then, as if an insidious trickle had finally weakened the walls enough to let the river in.  It washed through him so suddenly that if he hadn’t been sitting down, Steve might have fallen.  For a panicked, vertiginous moment, Steve lost track of where he was and imagined he was back in the bunker, mostly naked, entirely weak, unwanted hands touching him.

 

Then he felt a hand on his arm, a steady, strong pressure that helped him come back to himself.  Clint was leaning across the counter, making contact only in that one spot, his eyes steady on Steve’s face.

 

There was no judgment, no pity, no revulsion—just a warm, firm assurance that things would be okay.

 

He nodded to let Clint know that he was back with them, and Clint sat back and made a point of not staring at Steve while Steve got himself back together. 

 

“Anyway, I should get back,” he said, sliding off the stool, grateful that his knees seemed just fine now.  “Tony’s going to be wondering where I am.”

 

“You sure you don’t want me to—,” Bruce offered again.

 

Steve shook his head.  “The mood Tony’s in, he’d have you at Hulk in under sixty seconds.  But thanks.”  He looked at each of them, letting them see what he didn’t know quite how to say.  He settled on a simple, “Thank you,” and hoped they understood.

 

Clint and Bruce gave him almost identical manly nods, but Nat said, “Anything, any time,” in a quiet, steady voice, and he felt a surge of warmth as if his heart was swelling. 

 

Back in the room, it was quiet except for Tony’s adenoidal snoring.  Steve propped him carefully up against an extra pillow (with a fresh pillowcase, of course), and Tony’s breathing eased a little.  He gathered the detritus of used tissues and lozenge wrappers, emptied the waste basket, and got Tony a fresh bottle of water from the suite’s mini-fridge in case he woke up thirsty.

 

Then Steve settled carefully down beside him and spent a little time letting his heart settle into the fact that he had a family again.  Not since the Howling Commandos had he felt this kind of belonging, a sense that he could relax enough to let others take care of him for a while.

 

With the warmth still lingering in the region of his heart, Steve let himself fall asleep, content with Tony by his side and safe with Clint and Nat and Bruce just down the hall, prepared to protect him with their lives.

 

If he dreamed, he didn’t remember it, and when he woke, Tony was looking down at him, the antic gleam of fever gone from his eyes and a gentle smile on his lips.

 

“Hey,” Tony said, and Steve said it back, pushing himself up until they were propped shoulder to shoulder against the headboard.

 

“Not exactly the way I’d planned to celebrate the New Year,” Tony rasped.

 

“I don’t know,” Steve said.  “I kind of like it, staying in.  You, me, the team, watch a movie, make some popcorn, ring in the new year with sparkling cider and a song.”

 

“You are an enormous sap, you know that, don’t you?  I mean, we’re talking walked-out-of-a-Rockwell-painting, featured-on-a-Hallmark-commercial level sapdom here.”

 

“I know,” Steve confirmed, that warm feeling returning to his chest.  “And you love it.”

 

There was a suspended moment of silence while Tony left him hanging, and then he answered, very softly, “I do” (though it still sounded like “I thooo”).


End file.
